Enlarge / A US child infected with measles during a 2024 outbreak. The child’s cheek shows the characteristic rash associated with this viral infection. (credit: CDC)

With one of the highest vaccine exemption rates in the country, Oregon is experiencing its largest measles outbreak in decades. This year's count is now higher than anything seen since 2000, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared the highly contagious virus eliminated from the US.

Since the start of the year, Oregon has tallied 31 cases of measles, all in unvaccinated people. The cases have been accumulating in sustained waves of transmission since mid-June.

Last month, when the outbreak tally was still in the 20s, health officials noted that it was nearing a state record set in 2019. There were 28 cases that year, which were linked to a large outbreak across the border in Washington state. But, with that record now surpassed, the state is in pre-elimination territory.

Enlarge / A 13-year-old celebrates getting the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in Hartford, Connecticut, on May 13, 2021. (credit: Getty | JOSEPH PREZIOSO )

With the impending arrival of the 2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccines approved yesterday, some Americans are now gaming out when to get their dose—right away while the summer wave is peaking, a bit later in the fall to maximize protection for the coming winter wave, or maybe a few weeks before a big family event at the end of the year? Of course, the group pondering such a question is just a small portion of the US.

Only 22.5 percent of adults and 14 percent of children in the country are estimated to have gotten the 2023–2024 vaccine. By contrast, 48.5 percent of adults and 54 percent of children were estimated to have gotten a flu shot. The stark difference is despite the fact that COVID-19 is deadlier than the flu, and the SARS-CoV-2 virus is evolving faster than seasonal influenza viruses.

In a press briefing Friday, federal health officials were quick to redirect focus when reporters raised questions about the timing of COVID-19 vaccination in the coming months and the possibility of updating the vaccines twice a year, instead of just once, to keep up with an evolving virus that has been producing both summer and winter waves.

Enlarge / Polio victim Larry Montoya is at the airport for the arrival of cases of vaccine, which were distributed as part of the KO Polio campaign, September 5, 1962. (credit: Getty | John McBride)

Public sentiment on the importance of safe, lifesaving childhood vaccines has significantly declined in the US since the pandemic—which appears to be solely due to a nosedive in support from people who are Republican or those who lean Republican, according to new polling data from Gallup.

In 2019, 52 percent of Republican-aligned Americans said it was "extremely important" for parents to get their children vaccinated. Now, that figure is 26 percent, falling by half in just five years. In comparison, 63 percent of Democrats and Democratic leaners said it was "extremely important" this year, down slightly from 67 percent in 2019.

Overall, only 40 percent of Americans now say it is extremely important for parents to vaccinate their children, down from 58 percent in 2019 and 64 percent in 2001.

Enlarge / Long covid activists attend the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies hearing on the "Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Request for the National Institutes of Health," in Dirksen building on May 23, 2024. (credit: Getty | Tom Williams)

As a summer wave of COVID-19 infections swells once again, a study published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine offers some positive news about the pandemic disease: Rates of long COVID have declined since the beginning of the health crisis, with rates falling from a high of 10.4 percent before vaccines were available to a low of 3.5 percent for those vaccinated during the omicron era, according to the new analysis.

The study, led by Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research at the VA Saint Louis Health Care System, used data from a wealth of health records in the Department of Veterans Affairs. The researchers ultimately included data from over 440,000 veterans who contracted COVID-19 sometime between March 1, 2020, and January 31, 2022, as well as over 4.7 million uninfected veterans who acted as controls.

Al-Aly and colleagues divided the population into eight groups. People who were infected during the study period were divided into five groupings by the dates of their first infection and their vaccination status. The first group included those infected in the pre-delta era before vaccines were available (March 1, 2020, to June 18, 2021). Then there were vaccinated and unvaccinated groups who were infected in the delta era (June 19, 2021, to December 18, 2021) and the omicron era (December 19, 2021, and January 31, 2022). The uninfected controls made up the final three of eight groups, with the controls assigned to one of the three eras.

Enlarge / An MMR and VAR vaccine ready for a pediatric vaccination at Kaiser Permanente East Medical offices in Denver in 2015. (credit: Getty | Joe Amon)

For years, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has bluntly stated the truth: "Vaccines do not cause autism," the agency affirms on its website. Yet, nearly a quarter of Americans still don't believe it.

In an April 2024 survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania, 24 percent of US adults denied or disputed that the CDC ever said that. Specifically, the survey asked them to assess the accuracy of the statement that the CDC has said there is no evidence linking vaccines to autism. Six percent called the statement "very inaccurate," and 18 percent said it was "somewhat inaccurate." An additional 3 percent responded that they were "not sure." Of the remaining 73 percent, only 41 percent considered it "very accurate," and 32 percent said it was "somewhat accurate."

The results are largely unchanged from responses in 2018 when survey respondents were asked the same question. In that year, 26 percent of adults reported that the statement was "very inaccurate" or "somewhat inaccurate."